ATLANTA, Ga. (FNN) – Chick-fil-A, Inc. has announced a milestone year for its True Inspiration Awards® grant program, awarding a record-breaking $6 million to 56 nonprofits dedicated to creating meaningful community impact. This year’s grants support organizations across the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico, and the U.K., aligning with Chick-fil-A’s commitment to caring for people, communities, food, and the planet.

2025 By the Numbers

• $6 million in grants awarded, with amounts ranging from $30,000 to $350,000.
• 56 nonprofit recipients, including the program’s first U.K.-based grant recipient.
• Over 625,000 votes cast by Chick-fil-A One® Members through the Chick-fil-A App to help select regional recipients.
• Since its inception in 2015, the program has awarded more than 350 grants, totaling $33.8 million and impacting over 500,000 people annually.

S. Truett Cathy Honoree: Old Skool Cafe (San Francisco, Calif.)

The largest grant of $350,000 was awarded to Old Skool Cafe (OSC), a nonprofit supper club run by at-risk youth.

About Old Skool Cafe:

• Provides job training, employment, and leadership opportunities for youth aged 16-22.
• Operates a 1920s-inspired global soul food supper club with live jazz music.
• Plans to use the grant to expand trauma-informed staff training, enhance job readiness programs, and strengthen community partnerships to support at-risk youth in the Bay Area.

“The leadership development, mentorship, and hospitality job training that Old Skool Cafe provides to at-risk youth in San Francisco creates unparalleled opportunities for economic mobility,” said Susanna Choe, local Owner-Operator of Chick-fil-A Serramonte in Daly City, Calif., who nominated OSC. “This generous grant from Chick-fil-A will help Old Skool Cafe continue to transform the lives of underserved young people for years to come.”

The 2025 True Inspiration Awards also introduced a new “Subsidiary Recipients” category, which supports organizations nominated by General Managers from Chick-fil-A’s supply chain operations. This new initiative underscores Chick-fil-A’s dedication to localized impact in communities tied to its global supply chain.

One notable recipient is the U.K.-based Hospitality Action, marking the brand’s expanding philanthropic footprint ahead of its restaurant openings in the United Kingdom in 2025.

Commitment to Caring

“Chick-fil-A is honored to invest in the impactful work of these incredible organizations that are creating meaningful change in their local communities,” said Brent Fielder, Vice President of Global Impact for Chick-fil-A, Inc. “From fighting hunger and providing educational opportunities to fostering environmental stewardship, these nonprofits exemplify what it means to care for others and have a positive influence on the world.”

Key Nonprofit Categories and Recipients

Care for People:

• Special Equestrians (Warrington, Pa.): $200,000
• Travis Manion Foundation (Doylestown, Pa.): $60,000

Care for Communities:

• Sheridan House Family Ministries (Davie, Fla.): $200,000
• Train Up a Child, Inc. (St. Louis, Mo.): $60,000

Care Through Food:

• Center of United Methodist Aid to the Community (Paterson, N.J.): $200,000
• Merced County Food Bank (Merced, Calif.): $60,000

Care for the Planet:

• Out Teach (Washington, D.C.): $200,000
• Ecology Project International (Missoula, Mont.): $75,000

Global Recipients:

• The Happy Givers (Vega Alta, Puerto Rico): $200,000
• Hospitality Action (London, England): $125,000

Since 2015, the True Inspiration Awards program has empowered nonprofits to drive progress in critical areas, including hunger relief, education, and youth leadership. The 2025 program’s historic global reach and funding level reflect Chick-fil-A’s deep commitment to fostering sustainable, localized change across its growing footprint.

For more information, visit Chick-fil-A.com/True-Inspiration-Awards.

J Willie David, III
Florida National News and FNN News Network
news@FloridaNationalNews.com

Carrying science and tech on Firefly Aerospace’s first CLPS or Commercial Lunar Payload Services flight for NASA, Blue Ghost Mission 1 launched at 1:11 a.m. EST aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The company is targeting a lunar landing on Sunday, March 2.

“This mission embodies the bold spirit of NASA’s Artemis campaign – a campaign driven by scientific exploration and discovery,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. “Each flight we’re part of is vital step in the larger blueprint to establish a responsible, sustained human presence at the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Each scientific instrument and technology demonstration brings us closer to realizing our vision. Congratulations to the NASA, Firefly, and SpaceX teams on this successful launch.”

Once on the Moon, NASA will test and demonstrate lunar drilling technology, regolith (lunar rocks and soil) sample collection capabilities, global navigation satellite system abilities, radiation tolerant computing, and lunar dust mitigation methods. The data captured could also benefit humans on Earth by providing insights into how space weather and other cosmic forces impact our home planet.

“NASA leads the world in space exploration, and American companies are a critical part of bringing humanity back to the Moon,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We learned many lessons during the Apollo Era which informed the technological and science demonstrations aboard Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 – ensuring the safety and health of our future science instruments, spacecraft, and, most importantly, our astronauts on the lunar surface. I am excited to see the incredible science and technological data Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 will deliver in the days to come.”

As part of NASA’s modern lunar exploration activities, CLPS deliveries to the Moon will help humanity better understand planetary processes and evolution, search for water and other resources, and support long-term, sustainable human exploration of the Moon in preparation for the first human mission to Mars.

There are 10 NASA payloads flying on this flight:

• Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER) will characterize heat flow from the interior of the Moon by measuring the thermal gradient and conductivity of the lunar subsurface. It will take several measurements to about a 10-foot final depth using pneumatic drilling technology with a custom heat flow needle instrument at its tip. Lead organization: Texas Tech University
• Lunar PlanetVac (LPV) is designed to collect regolith samples from the lunar surface using a burst of compressed gas to drive the regolith into a sample chamber for collection and analysis by various instruments. Additional instrumentation will then transmit the results back to Earth. Lead organization: Honeybee Robotics
• Next Generation Lunar Retroreflector (NGLR) serves as a target for lasers on Earth to precisely measure the distance between Earth and the Moon. The retroreflector that will fly on this mission could also collect data to understand various aspects of the lunar interior and address fundamental physics questions. Lead organization: University of Maryland
• Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC) will determine how lunar regolith sticks to a range of materials exposed to the Moon’s environment throughout the lunar day. The RAC instrument will measure accumulation rates of lunar regolith on the surfaces of several materials including solar cells, optical systems, coatings, and sensors through imaging to determine their ability to repel or shed lunar dust. The data captured will allow the industry to test, improve, and protect spacecraft, spacesuits, and habitats from abrasive regolith. Lead organization: Aegis Aerospace
• Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC) will demonstrate a computer that can recover from faults caused by ionizing radiation. Several RadPC prototypes have been tested aboard the International Space Station and Earth-orbiting satellites, but now will demonstrate the computer’s ability to withstand space radiation as it passes through Earth’s radiation belts, while in transit to the Moon, and on the lunar surface. Lead organization: Montana State University
• Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) is an active dust mitigation technology that uses electric fields to move and prevent hazardous lunar dust accumulation on surfaces. The EDS technology is designed to lift, transport, and remove particles from surfaces with no moving parts. Multiple tests will demonstrate the feasibility of the self-cleaning glasses and thermal radiator surfaces on the Moon. In the event the surfaces do not receive dust during landing, EDS has the capability to re-dust itself using the same technology. Lead organization: NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
• Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI) will capture a series of X-ray images to study the interaction of solar wind and the Earth’s magnetic field that drives geomagnetic disturbances and storms. Deployed and operated on the lunar surface, this instrument will provide the first global images showing the edge of Earth’s magnetic field for critical insights into how space weather and other cosmic forces surrounding our planet impact it. Lead organizations: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Boston University, and Johns Hopkins University
• Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) will characterize the structure and composition of the Moon’s mantle by measuring electric and magnetic fields. This investigation will help determine the Moon’s temperature structure and thermal evolution to understand how the Moon has cooled and chemically differentiated since it formed. Lead organization: Southwest Research Institute
• Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) will demonstrate the possibility of acquiring and tracking signals from Global Navigation Satellite System constellations, specifically GPS and Galileo, during transit to the Moon, during lunar orbit, and on the lunar surface. If successful, LuGRE will be the first pathfinder for future lunar spacecraft to use existing Earth-based navigation constellations to autonomously and accurately estimate their position, velocity, and time. Lead organizations: NASA Goddard, Italian Space Agency
• Stereo Camera for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) will use stereo imaging photogrammetry to capture the impact of rocket plume on lunar regolith as the lander descends on the Moon’s surface. The high-resolution stereo images will aid in creating models to predict lunar regolith erosion, which is an important task as bigger, heavier payloads are delivered to the Moon in close proximity to each other. This instrument also flew on Intuitive Machine’s first CLPS delivery. Lead organization: NASA’s Langley Research Center

“With 10 NASA science and technology instruments launching to the Moon, this is the largest CLPS delivery to date, and we are proud of the teams that have gotten us to this point,” said Chris Culbert, program manager for the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. “We will follow this latest CLPS delivery with more in 2025 and later years. American innovation and interest to the Moon continues to grow, and NASA has already awarded 11 CLPS deliveries and plans to continue to select two more flights per year.”

Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander is targeted to land near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, a more than 300-mile-wide basin located in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side. The NASA science on this flight will gather valuable scientific data studying Earth’s nearest neighbor and helping pave the way for the first Artemis astronauts to explore the lunar surface later this decade.

Learn more about NASA’s CLPS initiative at:

https://www.nasa.gov/clps